What odd definition of 'general purpose computer' are you using? A 'general purpose computer' is a computer that can be programmed. 'General purpose' has NOTHING to do with binary or decimal modes, or scientific vs commercial applications. Earlier models of 'computers' were NOT general purpose, they had specific built-in functions, such as adding machines or tragectory calculators, and that is all they did. The 1401 is certainly a general purpose computer. The fact that you list RPG and COBOL proves that it was, in fact, a general purpose computer.
Who said otherwise? I was responding to the incredibly inaccurate statement that general purpose computers were not used by businesses until the late 70s and 80s. Regardless of whether or not older equipment was still in use, general purpose computers WERE used by businesses long before that. The 1401 was a general purpose computer, and they had orders for more than 5000 of them the first month, in 1959. The 360 was a general purpose computer and they had orders for 2000 of those in the first couple of months, in 1964.
In 1969 (a full decade before this guy claims businesses used general purpose computers) the DOJ filed an anti-trust suit against IBM alleging that IBM was 'monopolizing or attempting to monopolize the general purpose electronic digital computer market, specifically computers designed primarily for business'. How to you monopolize a market that does not exist?
That is completely wrong. The IBM 360 was introduced in 1964. The POP even calls the instructions the commercial instruction set. Before that there was the IBM 702 (1952), the IBM 650 (1953), and the IBM 1401 (1959). All were general purpose machines used by businesses.
And just how do they fix ALL the cars? Do they come and tow the car out of your garage if you don't get to the dealer in a fixed amount of time? Or do they make it illegal for the owner to drive the car until it is fixed (which puts a burden on the owner, not the manufacturer)?
And if you buy a used car, you can STILL go to the dealer and see if there are any outstanding recalls on the vehicle.
WTF are you talking about? The car companies ARE responsible for fixing this. And every new car comes with this thing called a 'warranty', which means the manufacturer is responsible for defects in a new car. And many (most? all?) states have 'lemon laws' for when warranty repairs are not enough.
Yes, and? The cost of a PARTICULAR wedding will of course rise if there are more guests, but that is not what they are talking about when they are talking about the cost of a wedding. You can have a wedding with 200 people and only spend $10K, or you can have a wedding with 20 people and spend $100K.
Way to completely miss the point. Some people choose the venue NOT because of the size, but because they simply MUST 'have the best'. Or maybe they choose the venue to fulfill a fantasy. For instance, you can get married in Disney World. You can choose all kinds of options, such as having the wedding party arrive in horse-drawn carriages, etc. You can spend many 10's of thousands of dollars before even ONE guest is invited. And when you do invite your first guest, the price does not double.
Apart from the venue there are also things like the wedding dress - do you have any idea on the price range for wedding dresses? Same for things like flowers, photographers, etc.
THAT is what they are talking about, not stupid crap like '20 people cost more that 10 people'.
Anybody who thinks that wedding costs only scale with the number of people is a fool.
No, it is not. You can have your reception in the church hall (maybe catered, maybe potluck, etc), or you can have it at the fanciest country club in town.
If you have a lot of people at a wedding where you are not spending a lot of money, those people are there because they care about you. That is a good thing.
If you spend a lot of money on a wedding that does not have a lot of guests, it indicates that appearances are very important to you. That is not a good thing.
Since cost of a wedding scales linearly with the number of attendees
Where do you get that stupid idea? Go price a wedding venue for 200 people, then see if you can have the same venue for 10% of the cost if you only invite 20 people. Food and drink may 'scale', the price of the venue, entertainment, etc does not.
Wait, you're claiming that sticking something that already exists (a digital camera) in the same case as something else that already existed is MORE innovative than the camera sensors, memory, and all that other stuff you can't see is? That has got to be one of the STUPIDEST things I have ever heard.
Exactly what patent is it that covers ALL speech recognition on a computer? Or has there been some mathematical proof done that shows there is no other way to do it?
You can't get a patent on a 'new version'. You can get a patent on improvements, but ANYONE can do that.
What do you mean speech recognition isn't an invention? Did it just fall out of the sky or something?
If this technology existed 20 years ago, then the patent is expired anyway.
Wow. You do know that Moore's law is not a real thing, right? You can't 'take advantage of it'.
And you may want to look at what one of those 'other companies' that are making these ever smaller components is called. Hint, it begins with an S and ends with a G.
"The point" is that no system is, or will ever be, perfect. You are the one making the claim that they are too cheap to patch systems, etc. They aren't.
Even with their precautions someone breached them. That does not mean the money was not well spent, it just means that their system (including all the users of their system) is not perfect. I suppose YOU could make a 'perfect system' for them?
Of course they COULD have kept that valuable customer name/email information off the internet. That would kind of make it impossible to offer on-line banking (something probably 99% of their customers want), wouldn't it.
There will ALWAYS be tradeoffs between usability and security. A perfectly secure system would be virtually useless. The trick, of course, is finding the right balance. A breech like this does not show that balance is not currently right.
How is that 'not really innovation'? What enabled all those improvements, magic? Or maybe you think Moore's law is an actual law of physics, and things are just going to keep getting denser with no innovation from dedicated human beings?
If 'incremental improvements' are not innovation, then there has been no innovation between ENIAC and today's smartphones. Every one of the steps between there and here has been 'just an incremental improvement'.
What is your point? Yes, I am sure Dragon has patents on certain ways of doing speech recognition, and if you want to use those methods you must pay Dragon. So what?
The purpose of patents is to spur innovation. Doing what someone else is already doing, the same way they are doing it, is not innovation.
If you are unable to copy (whether or not you 'designed it from scratch') what Dragon is doing, maybe you should do something ELSE. Maybe there is a better way to do speech recognition. Maybe you should focus your attention on something other than speech recognition. Those efforts could lead to real innovation, efforts that would otherwise be wasted doing what already has been done.
Read up on something like the history of the steam engine. Watt was motivated by financial gain. He patented his engine and rigorously defended it. Other people saw a lucrative market for steam powered engines, and set about making their own engines that were different than what Watt did. That drove innovation. And the same pattern is repeated throughout history.
Really? 10 years ago you had a phone with 32GB of memory, that could connect to an LTE4 network, stream usable HD video (and display it on it's own HD screen), do voice recognition, weighed less the 150 grams, had a 16MP camera, etc? Exactly which phone was that?
Now, maybe YOU do not want or appreciate those features, and that is fine, but don't pretend they don't exist.
Most innovation (not just now, but always) does NOT show up suddenly as some earth-shattering new thing. Most innovation is incremental improvements to existing stuff.
Yep, you can't innovate. Which is why the phone in your pocket is exactly the same as, does the same thing as, and performs the same as the phone that was there 10 years ago.
Haha. For almost 90 years motor vehicles have been excluded from the requirement to have a search warrant. If you 'stand your ground' they will just impound your vehicle and then search it.
What happens with a hole in the ground when you keep indiscriminately putting stuff in that you can't access? In case you don't know, it becomes full. And when it becomes full you have to cap it (expensive) and properly prepare a new hole (more expensive). I'll leave it to you to try and figure out why the city (and I am guessing the vast majority of it's citizens) think that is a bad thing.
OK, if you want to call a $1 fine 'force', go ahead. You will note that this is similar to the fines they have already been assessing for 3 years for putting recyclables in the trash, and in all that time have only had $2000 worth of fines.
As for why, it is pretty obvious. It is not that they 'want to make compost', it is that they DON'T want recyclable material in the landfills. Once something is in a landfill it is there, taking up space, pretty much forever. Landfills get full and must be closed, and new landfills built. Both of those are expensive (and environmentally unfriendly).
If they compost, on the other hand, they wind up with something useful, which can be sold to help pay for the landfills. Composted material does not become your problem forever, landfilled material does.
I doubt very much that they care what you do with your recyclables, as long as they don't wind up in the landfill.
Based on your acceptance of an article in Computerworld(!) as being a reliable source or a true reflection of what was actually stated, I would say you are a moron.
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What odd definition of 'general purpose computer' are you using? A 'general purpose computer' is a computer that can be programmed. 'General purpose' has NOTHING to do with binary or decimal modes, or scientific vs commercial applications. Earlier models of 'computers' were NOT general purpose, they had specific built-in functions, such as adding machines or tragectory calculators, and that is all they did. The 1401 is certainly a general purpose computer. The fact that you list RPG and COBOL proves that it was, in fact, a general purpose computer.
Who said otherwise? I was responding to the incredibly inaccurate statement that general purpose computers were not used by businesses until the late 70s and 80s. Regardless of whether or not older equipment was still in use, general purpose computers WERE used by businesses long before that. The 1401 was a general purpose computer, and they had orders for more than 5000 of them the first month, in 1959. The 360 was a general purpose computer and they had orders for 2000 of those in the first couple of months, in 1964.
In 1969 (a full decade before this guy claims businesses used general purpose computers) the DOJ filed an anti-trust suit against IBM alleging that IBM was 'monopolizing or attempting to monopolize the general purpose electronic digital computer market, specifically computers designed primarily for business'. How to you monopolize a market that does not exist?
That is completely wrong. The IBM 360 was introduced in 1964. The POP even calls the instructions the commercial instruction set. Before that there was the IBM 702 (1952), the IBM 650 (1953), and the IBM 1401 (1959). All were general purpose machines used by businesses.
And just how do they fix ALL the cars? Do they come and tow the car out of your garage if you don't get to the dealer in a fixed amount of time? Or do they make it illegal for the owner to drive the car until it is fixed (which puts a burden on the owner, not the manufacturer)?
And if you buy a used car, you can STILL go to the dealer and see if there are any outstanding recalls on the vehicle.
WTF are you talking about? The car companies ARE responsible for fixing this. And every new car comes with this thing called a 'warranty', which means the manufacturer is responsible for defects in a new car. And many (most? all?) states have 'lemon laws' for when warranty repairs are not enough.
Yes, and? The cost of a PARTICULAR wedding will of course rise if there are more guests, but that is not what they are talking about when they are talking about the cost of a wedding. You can have a wedding with 200 people and only spend $10K, or you can have a wedding with 20 people and spend $100K.
Way to completely miss the point. Some people choose the venue NOT because of the size, but because they simply MUST 'have the best'. Or maybe they choose the venue to fulfill a fantasy. For instance, you can get married in Disney World. You can choose all kinds of options, such as having the wedding party arrive in horse-drawn carriages, etc. You can spend many 10's of thousands of dollars before even ONE guest is invited. And when you do invite your first guest, the price does not double.
Apart from the venue there are also things like the wedding dress - do you have any idea on the price range for wedding dresses? Same for things like flowers, photographers, etc.
THAT is what they are talking about, not stupid crap like '20 people cost more that 10 people'.
Anybody who thinks that wedding costs only scale with the number of people is a fool.
No, it is not. You can have your reception in the church hall (maybe catered, maybe potluck, etc), or you can have it at the fanciest country club in town.
If you have a lot of people at a wedding where you are not spending a lot of money, those people are there because they care about you. That is a good thing.
If you spend a lot of money on a wedding that does not have a lot of guests, it indicates that appearances are very important to you. That is not a good thing.
Since cost of a wedding scales linearly with the number of attendees
Where do you get that stupid idea? Go price a wedding venue for 200 people, then see if you can have the same venue for 10% of the cost if you only invite 20 people. Food and drink may 'scale', the price of the venue, entertainment, etc does not.
Sure, if you ignore the whole Radcliffe College (started in 1879) thing.
Wait, you're claiming that sticking something that already exists (a digital camera) in the same case as something else that already existed is MORE innovative than the camera sensors, memory, and all that other stuff you can't see is? That has got to be one of the STUPIDEST things I have ever heard.
Exactly what patent is it that covers ALL speech recognition on a computer? Or has there been some mathematical proof done that shows there is no other way to do it?
You can't get a patent on a 'new version'. You can get a patent on improvements, but ANYONE can do that.
What do you mean speech recognition isn't an invention? Did it just fall out of the sky or something?
If this technology existed 20 years ago, then the patent is expired anyway.
You're not making any sense.
Wow. You do know that Moore's law is not a real thing, right? You can't 'take advantage of it'.
And you may want to look at what one of those 'other companies' that are making these ever smaller components is called. Hint, it begins with an S and ends with a G.
"The point" is that no system is, or will ever be, perfect. You are the one making the claim that they are too cheap to patch systems, etc. They aren't.
Even with their precautions someone breached them. That does not mean the money was not well spent, it just means that their system (including all the users of their system) is not perfect. I suppose YOU could make a 'perfect system' for them?
Of course they COULD have kept that valuable customer name/email information off the internet. That would kind of make it impossible to offer on-line banking (something probably 99% of their customers want), wouldn't it.
There will ALWAYS be tradeoffs between usability and security. A perfectly secure system would be virtually useless. The trick, of course, is finding the right balance. A breech like this does not show that balance is not currently right.
How is that 'not really innovation'? What enabled all those improvements, magic? Or maybe you think Moore's law is an actual law of physics, and things are just going to keep getting denser with no innovation from dedicated human beings?
If 'incremental improvements' are not innovation, then there has been no innovation between ENIAC and today's smartphones. Every one of the steps between there and here has been 'just an incremental improvement'.
What is your point? Yes, I am sure Dragon has patents on certain ways of doing speech recognition, and if you want to use those methods you must pay Dragon. So what?
The purpose of patents is to spur innovation. Doing what someone else is already doing, the same way they are doing it, is not innovation.
If you are unable to copy (whether or not you 'designed it from scratch') what Dragon is doing, maybe you should do something ELSE. Maybe there is a better way to do speech recognition. Maybe you should focus your attention on something other than speech recognition. Those efforts could lead to real innovation, efforts that would otherwise be wasted doing what already has been done.
Read up on something like the history of the steam engine. Watt was motivated by financial gain. He patented his engine and rigorously defended it. Other people saw a lucrative market for steam powered engines, and set about making their own engines that were different than what Watt did. That drove innovation. And the same pattern is repeated throughout history.
Really? 10 years ago you had a phone with 32GB of memory, that could connect to an LTE4 network, stream usable HD video (and display it on it's own HD screen), do voice recognition, weighed less the 150 grams, had a 16MP camera, etc? Exactly which phone was that?
Now, maybe YOU do not want or appreciate those features, and that is fine, but don't pretend they don't exist.
Most innovation (not just now, but always) does NOT show up suddenly as some earth-shattering new thing. Most innovation is incremental improvements to existing stuff.
Exactly. This is nothing more than a case of nostalgia for 'the good old days' that never actually existed.
Watt and his competitors were having patent fights hundreds of years ago. Bell and his competitors. Edison. The list goes on.
Yep, you can't innovate. Which is why the phone in your pocket is exactly the same as, does the same thing as, and performs the same as the phone that was there 10 years ago.
Haha. For almost 90 years motor vehicles have been excluded from the requirement to have a search warrant. If you 'stand your ground' they will just impound your vehicle and then search it.
Try running a new smartphone on a battery of the same size from 10 years ago, then come back and tell us they haven't improved batteries.
What happens with a hole in the ground when you keep indiscriminately putting stuff in that you can't access? In case you don't know, it becomes full. And when it becomes full you have to cap it (expensive) and properly prepare a new hole (more expensive). I'll leave it to you to try and figure out why the city (and I am guessing the vast majority of it's citizens) think that is a bad thing.
OK, if you want to call a $1 fine 'force', go ahead. You will note that this is similar to the fines they have already been assessing for 3 years for putting recyclables in the trash, and in all that time have only had $2000 worth of fines.
As for why, it is pretty obvious. It is not that they 'want to make compost', it is that they DON'T want recyclable material in the landfills. Once something is in a landfill it is there, taking up space, pretty much forever. Landfills get full and must be closed, and new landfills built. Both of those are expensive (and environmentally unfriendly).
If they compost, on the other hand, they wind up with something useful, which can be sold to help pay for the landfills. Composted material does not become your problem forever, landfilled material does.
I doubt very much that they care what you do with your recyclables, as long as they don't wind up in the landfill.
Based on your acceptance of an article in Computerworld(!) as being a reliable source or a true reflection of what was actually stated, I would say you are a moron.